Favorite reads of 2022

A good year.  43 books recorded, and only 1 put down without finishing.  A lot of very recent books.  Some brief thoughts:

The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration, by Isabel Wilkerson (2010).  During the 20th century, 6 million black Americans moved out of the South in search of a better life.  Wilkerson focuses on the stories of three individuals to provide narratives to follow, and expertly distills her interviews with 1,200 people into sections that place these three stories into the context of the greater migration.

The Midnight Bargain, by C.L. Polk (2020).  I enjoyed how magic worked in this world, and how it highlighted the kinds of sacrifices women are expected to make, and how men often quail when asked to make the same sacrifices.

The Echo Wife, by Sarah Gailey (2021).  After reading this, I had kinda expected it to be on the Hugo or Nebula shortlist for best novel.  It's a very effective near future novel because you can see something like it happening.

The Prophets, by Robert Jones, Jr.  (2021).  This was painful to read, but well worth it.

The Language of Thorns, by Leigh Bardugo (2017).  A wonderful set of short stories that are tales from Bardugo's Grishaverse.  Like Tales of Beedle the Bard, but better.

A Master of Djinn, by P. Djèlí Clark (2021).  Now we get to the 2022 Hugo finalists.  I had really enjoyed the Haunting of Tram Car 015, also set in the world, and it was fun to return to that setting.

Light from Uncommon Stars, by Ryka Aoki (2021).  I think this was my favorite read this year.  It shouldn't work; it breaks too many rules of SFF storytelling, but everything comes together, and it's funny and sad and serious and silly and trying to be everything all at once and succeeding. 

She Who Became the Sun, by Shelley Parker-Chan (2021).  Or... She Who Became the Son?  I liked this a lot.  Lots of juicy themes about ambition and what various characters are willing to do to get their desires.  Shades of the Empress of Salt & Fortune (locale + revenge) and The Black Sun (on the theme of one's destiny).  It's very light historical fantasy -- I was expecting a little more fantastical elements and more literal "becoming the sun", but the political maneuverings are the star of the novel.

A Desolation Called Peace, by Arkady Martine (2021).  The Hugo award-winning sequel to her Hugo award-winning A Memory Called Empire.  In the two years since reading the first book, I had forgotten how much I'd missed Three Seagrass.

Binti: The Complete Trilogy, by Nnedi Okorafor (2019).  I actually read the Binti novella some time ago, but it wasn't until 2022 that I finished the other two novellas.  I love Binti as a character because she feels very real and yet not quite like anyone else.  

If Beale Street Could Talk, by James Baldwin (1974).  By far the oldest book on the list, it was interesting to compare and contrast how styles of writing have changed in 50 years.  When Baldwin is writing about what his characters and saying, doing, and feeling, it's excellent.  There are a few times when he goes off talking very generally what it's like to be a woman or on the nature of things and I'm rolling my eyes, but I need to read some more Baldwin.  And I'm interested in the recent film adaptation.

Spear, by Nicola Griffith (2022).  I first read Slow River in 2003, and then the Aud Torvingen series and Ammonite.  I've been putting off reading Hild because it's a tome.  Spear is so wonderfully done that it makes me want to start Hild.  I'm a little worried that part of what I like about Spear is that it's a very efficient story, clocking in < 200 pages, and I'll get mired in Hild, but... it's time.

It's Lonely at the Centre of the Earth, by Zoe Thorogood (2022)  My big present this year was a new 10" tablet.  This was my first read through Hoopla on it, and there is an excellent use of variations in style, framing, page layouts, and storytelling.  I'm reminded a little of Hyperbole and a Half, but with much richer artwork.  It's a comic book and the interface is perfect for this, so I'll be doing it a lot more in 2023.

Avatar and re-centering POV

The question of whether Avatar uses the white savior trope recently came up in an online discussion.  As often happens in an online conversation, we were talking past one another, and I hope to get together and have a zoom/meet convo, but needed to jot down some personal thoughts about it here in the meantime.

Full disclosure: we rented Avatar from Netflix on May 19, 2010, and apparently promptly watched it because it was marked as returned on May 25, 2010**, so I am relying upon internet sources to help fill in gaps in my memory; apologies in advance if I get facts wrong.

You can google white savior trope avatar and find nearly 200k hits, but the main points to me are that:

• Jake Sully is a white man***
• He is the POV character, and the action and resolution of the movie is dependent upon his choices.  The only significant choice the Na'vi get to make is: do we trust him?
• The success of the Na'vi is dependent upon Jake's prayer to Eywa being answered, in the form of the Eagles Pandoran fauna coming to the rescue

This seems like a clear-cut case of a white person depicted as rescuing non-white people who are denied agency in needing and accepting his benevolence.  

The Na'vi are not completely passive, but are entirely dependent upon a white man's choices, and they ultimately follow his lead as he "comes to know their ways" and surpasses their ability to commune with the mother goddess.  Even the title of the movie centers on the technology that allows Jake to masquerade as a Na'vi.  

Could Avatar have avoided this trope?  I think so, by re-centering the POV character on Neytiri.  If we follow her, we see more of the Na'vi and what they are like before Jake arrives.  We see their day-to-day lives and relationships, their concerns about the invaders, and what they plan to do about the humans.  We see they have agency in determining their fate, even if they have little hope of overcoming the weaponry the humans can bring to bear.  When she first encounters Jake in the forest, we are focused upon the choices *she* makes to rescue him and bring him to her clan.  If she is the POV character, then we begin to consider what she's doing when Jake's not around; perhaps she discovers for herself that Jake is a human, rather than making it something Jake reveals to her.  The Na'vi could then choose to try to use this knowledge to get him to reveal more about the human's strategy.  Simply shifting our point of view opens countless possibilities, and this is a technique applicable to any script.

None of this means that you can't enjoy Avatar as-is or must boycott the sequels.  All it means is that you should go in aware and with eyes open.

** Why, yes, I have my entire Netflix DVD rental history; doesn't everyone?

*** One might argue that Jake Sully is no longer a white man, because the avatar technology allows him to "become" a Na'vi.  For the first film, I reject this argument completely and unequivocally.  Jake is wearing a costume, and under that costume is someone whose entire upbringing is not Na'vi.  Jake can absolutely come to sympathize with the Na'vi and be accepted as an ally.  In a sequel that takes place years later, you could explore whether Jake has become Na'vi.  For the first film, if the argument that Avatar does not use the white savior trope is dependent upon Jake not being a white man, then we'll just have to agree to disagree

Risk Legacy

After Seafall, the next Legacy game we tried out was Risk Legacy.  

Since we already knew the rules of the regular game, it was easier to pick up the rules and minimize the possibility of misinterpreting them.  This makes it a potentially excellent candidate for your first Legacy game (assuming you're familiar with Risk).  Risk Legacy doesn't offer much in the way of story for the campaign, especially compared to Seafall, but you do get to make permanent changes to the board, you can tweak your forces a little bit, and in the end you have a customized copy of Risk that is replayable after the campaign, or at least more replayable than Seafall.  Whether it's a *balanced* game after all the customization is questionable, and highly dependent on the choices you make during the campaign.  

I have no photos of this game.  

After Risk Legacy, we tried Charterstone.

Seafall, part 2

Seafall is a Legacy game that we started nearly 6 years ago, and I first wrote about a little over 5.5 years ago.  I had intended at that time to write an immediate followup with pictures of the game, but life got in the way.  But finally, I'm making time to put these photos up, so here we go!

You get to name your character, ship, and province in the prologue game.  I drew the "Princess of the Realm" for my character's title, which naturally led me to name my character "Buttercup" and ship "Revenge", from the province of Florin.

We also have "Florence Nightengale" of "Umbar" and the good ship "Providence"...

... Nicolas of Bagatelle, with the ships Windswept and Arrow (after the prologue game, you get a second, smaller ship)...

...and lastly Gen Urso of Sacolt.  

Even in the very early stages of the game, there is a lot to keep track of while you're learning.  Each player gets a box in which you keep your player-specific pieces between games, which has been a staple of other Legacy games we've played.

Over time, you discover (and name) islands, and recruit (and name) hirelings and customize them as you see fit (natch Buttercup had her Westley).

Over time, you travel further and further away from the mainland, discovering more islands and more secrets within the game story.

Along the way, you'll have some epically bad rolls -- since these pips aren't counted as successes on Gont, these 4 pips counted as 0!

Until, eventually, you reach the end. 

We finished in 12 games, largely because we decided at some point to work together to solve the mysteries.  There are *so many* hireable people, and we would tend to end games in fairly few turns, so without cooperation, we would have played a lot of very similar games without making progress toward the endgame.

There are several different ways you can play the game -- focusing on exploration, building, military, or mercantile pursuits.  In our experience, they were not equally balanced, and the Treasure Hunter hireling seemed terribly broken.  As a result, Gen Urso had the highest point total at the end.

Buttercup's final hand.

Nicolas's final hand.

The final hand for Florence Nightengale, our military specialist.

A sampling of our hirelings.

Again, it's a beautiful looking game with a neat ongoing story and provides many, many hours of gameplay.  We've considered buying another copy and doing it again.  We've tried a new Legacy game every year and this might be our collective favorite.  As we've found with other Legacy games, you will almost certainly misunderstand how some part of the rules are supposed to work at various parts of the game.  It's okay; decide on your house rules and move on.

After Seafall, we tried out Risk Legacy.

"Stay and Fight" vs. "Walk Away"

The changes at Twitter have me thinking about Ursula Le Guin's story "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" and N.K. Jemisin's response "The Ones Who Stay and Fight".  Over the last several weeks, I've seen a number of arguments for people to stay and fight for the survival of the platform, and others to abandon Twitter for other platforms.

I have been at best an occasional contributor, but have seen a number of good conversations across many communities.  There are many alternative social platforms that people are considering, and the choosing has been chaotic.  The dispersal of Twitter communities to many sites would make it more difficult to cross-pollinate conversations.  I also understand some of the reasons why people would want to leave.

I'm personally continuing to stay on Twitter, until the conversations I read and am a part of have all migrated elsewhere.  At the same time, I'm also exploring the other options.  This post is a test of MastoFeed to see whether it correctly posts this to Mastodon.  (I've used dlvr.it for years to send posts to Twitter.)